And batters down himself: What should I say? He is so plaguy proud, that the death tokens 21 of it Cry-No recovery.

Agam.

Let Ajax go to him.

Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent:
'Tis said, he holds you well: and will be led,
At your request, a little from himself.

Ulyss. O Agamemnon, let it not be so!
We'll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes
When they go from Achilles; Shall the proud lord,
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam 22;
And never suffers matter of the world

Enter his thoughts,-save such as do revolve
And ruminate himself, shall he be worshipp'd
Of that we hold an idol more than he?

No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord
Must not so stale his palm, nobly acquir'd;
Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,
As amply titled as Achilles is,

By going to Achilles :

That were to enlard his fat-already pride;

And add more coals to Cancer 23, when he burns With entertaining great Hyperion.

This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid,

And say in thunder-Achilles, go to him.

Nest. O, this is well; he rubs the vein of him.

[Aside

21 Alluding to the decisive spots appearing on those infected with the plague. Spots of a dark complexion, usually called tokens, and looked on as the pledges or forewarnings of death.'Hodges on the Plague.

"Now like the fearful tokens of the plague,

Are mere forerunners of their ends.'

Beaumont and Fletcher's Valentinian.

22 Seam is fat. The grease, fat, or tallow of any animal; but chiefly applied to that of a hog.

23 The sign in the zodiac, into which the sun enters June 21. And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze.'

Thomson.

Dio. And how his silence drinks up this applause!

[Aside.

Ajax. If I go to him, with my arm'd fist I'll pash24

him

Over the face.

Agam.

O, no, you shall not go.

Ajax. An he be proud with me, I'll pheeze 25 his pride:

Let me go to him.

Ulyss. Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel 26.

Ajax. A paltry, insolent fellow !

Ajax.

I will let his humours blood 27.

Agam. He'll be the physician, that should be the

He was pashed over the pate with a pot.' The word is used twice by Massinger in his Virgin Martyr; and Mr. Gifford has adduced an instance from Dryden; he justly observes, it is to be regretted that the word is now obsolete, as we have none that can adequately supply its place. To dash signifying to throw one thing with violence against another; to pash is to strike a thing with such force as to crush it to pieces. 25 See note on the Induction to The Taming of the Shrew. 26 Not for the value of for which we are fighting.

27 There is a curious collection of Epigrams, Satires, &c. printed in 1600, with this quaint title: The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head Vaine.' A small reimpression was made at Edinburgh in 1815, with a preface and notes, by Sir Walter Scott.

Ajax. He should not bear it so,

it? [Aside.

He should eat swords first; Shall pride carry
Nest. An 'twould, you'd carry half.

Ulyss.

He'd have ten shares.

[Aside.

Ajax. I'll knead him, I will make him supple:Nest. He's not yet thorough warm: force 28 him with praises:

Pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry.

[Aside. Ulyss. My lord, you feed too much on this dis[To AGAMEMNON. Nest. O noble general, do not do so.

like.

Dio. You must prepare to fight without Achilles. Ulyss. Why, 'tis this naming of him does him harm. Here is a man-But 'tis before his face;

I will be silent.

Nest.

Wherefore should you so?

He is not emulous 29, as Achilles is.

Ulyss. Know the whole world, he is as valiant. Ajax. A whoreson dog, that shall palter 30 thus with us!

I would, he were a Trojan!

Nest.

Were it in Ajax now

Ulyss.

What a vice

If he were proud?

Ay, or surly borne?

Dio. Or covetous of praise?

Ulyss.

Dio. Or strange, or self-affected?

Ulyss. Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet

composure;

Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck: Fam❜d be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature

28 Force him, that is stuff him: farcir, Fr. In another place of this play we have malice forced with wit.'

29 See the preceding scene, note 25, p. 364. 30 To palter is to shuffle, equivocate.

Thrice-fam'd, beyond all erudition 31 :
But he that disciplin'd thy arms to fight,
Let Mars divide eternity in twain,

And give him half: and, for thy vigour,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition 32 yield

To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,
Which, like a bourn 33, a pale, a shore, confines
Thy spacious and dilated parts: Here's Nestor,-
Instructed by the antiquary times,

He must, he is, he cannot but be wise;-
But pardon, father Nestor, were your days
As green as Ajax', and your brain so temper'd,
You should not have the eminence of him,
But be as Ajax.

Ajax.

Shall I call you father 34?

Nest. Ay, my good son.

Dio.

Be rul'd by him, Lord Ajax. Ulyss. There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles

31 The quarto reads:

Thrice fam❜d beyond all thy erudition.'

32 i. e. yield his titles, his celebrity for strength. See Act i. Sc. 2, note 5.

33 A bourn is a boundary, and sometimes a rivulet, dividing one place from another. As in the line of the old ballad Edgar sings in Lear, Act iii. Sc. 6:

Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me.'

A bourn, or burn, A. S. buɲn, in the north, signifies a brook, or rivulet. Hence the names of many villages, &c. terminate in burn. So in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song I.:

The bourns, the brooks, the becks, the rills, the rivulets.'

And in Spenser, Faerie Queene, b. ii. c. 6 :—

My little boate can safely passe this perilous bourne.'

And Browne, Brit. Past. 1, 4, p. 99, 2d ed.:—

own

To gild the mutt'ring bournes, and pretty rills. them34 Shakspeare probably had a custom prevalent about time in his thoughts. Ben Jonson had many who cal-ng to his selves his sons. Cotton dedicates his book on, Berks, caused April 3, father Walton; and Ashmole, in his Diary obs

Mr. William Backhouse of Swallowfield,

me to call him father thenceforward.'

Keeps thicket. Please it our great general
To call together all his state of war;

Fresh kings are come to Troy: To-morrow,
We must with all our main of power stand fast:
And here's a lord,—come knights from east to west,
And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.
Agam. Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep:
Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw
deep.
[Exeunt.

ACT III.

SCENE I. Troy. A Room in Priam's Palace. Enter PANDARUS and a Servant.

Pan. Friend! you! pray you, a word: Do not you follow the young Lord Paris?

Serv. Ay, sir, when he goes before me.

Pan. You do depend upon him, I mean?
Serv. Sir, I do depend upon the lord.

Pan. You do depend upon a noble gentleman; I must needs praise him.

Serv. The lord be praised!

Pan. You know me, do

you

Serv. 'Faith, sir, superficially.

not?

Pan. Friend, know me better; I am the Lord Dandarus.

Serv. I hope, I shall know your honour better1.
T o desire it.

1 The

become avant means to quibble. He hopes Pandarus will he chooses to man than he is at present. In his next speech to grow better; a stand Pandarus as if he had said he wished state grace. ence the servant affirms that he is in the